It looks like senior men's basketball player Erik Meek won't be visiting the Career Development Center anytime soon. He's done quite well already this semester in his on-the-court interviews with the National Basketball Association.
Meek starred in the Portsmouth Invitational NBA tryout camp earlier this month in Portsmouth, Va. In winning Most Valuable Player honors, Meek led his team, Beach/Barton Ford, to the championship at the invitational.
"He was the MVP there, and deservedly so," NBA scout Marty Blake said. "Erik played very well. He had a broken nose and a sore shoulder.
"He should be able to get drafted. I think he has a chance to play in the league."
Blake said that Meek played well all week in Portsmouth, even in practice. In his team's quarterfinal game, Meek scored nine points and collected 10 rebounds.
He topped that effort with a 27-point, 15-rebound performance in the semifinal game despite breaking his nose during play.
"Eric had an image of a battler during the season and probably enhanced that by getting his nose broke and saying No, I'm going to keep playing, I've got too much at stake,"' Duke assistant coach Pete Gaudet said. "A lot of other guys would have saidGive me a mask.' Not Erik. He said, `I didn't come here not to play."'
Meek proved that by wrapping up the top individual honors with nine points and 18 rebounds in the championship game. For the weekend, Meek totaled 43 rebounds.
With his solid play at Portsmouth, Meek earned an invitation to play in last weekend's Desert Classic Tournament in Phoenix, Ariz. Many of the nation's top seniors were attempting to impress the scouts, and that prevented Meek from equalling his performance at Portsmouth.
"There was real good competition and it was a great learning experience, but I didn't get a lot of stats because there were a lot of guards out there trying to make it," Meek said. "They shot the ball a lot, so I didn't get many looks at the basket. I was just able to play some good defense and tried to rebound and move real well."
In an interview last Friday, Blake said that Meek had continued to play well through the first two days of the tournament. Gaudet credited Meek's practice regimen after the end of Duke's disappointing 13-18 season as the key to his success in the tryout camps.
"When our season was over, he was looking forward to this," Gaudet said. "He was in the gym with a buddy who rebounds for him. He was shooting free throws, hook shots, working his left hand and preparing mentally as well as physically. He's in good shape. He's a man with a plan."
Meek echoed Gaudet's sentiments, saying that he continued practicing for his trip to Arizona and wants to keep improving before a possible trip to an NBA combine in Chicago next month. Blake said Meek would almost certainly be invited to Chicago.
Taking time out from his cross-country trips, Meek returned to campus for the team's annual basketball awards dinner Monday night. He continued his month of collecting honors, picking up awards for taking the most charges on the team, the best field goal percentage, the best defensive player and the Dr. Deryl Hart award as the team's top student athlete. He and fellow senior co-captain Cherokee Parks were also co-winners of the Swett-Baylin award for team MVP.
Meek said that the team's losing season made it tough for him to enjoy any personal improvement in his own game. Still, he said that his MVP award in Portsmouth helped make up for the disappointment of the season.
Although Meek's individual accolades have arrived after his final season, his coaches are still happy to see him succeed.
"The great thing for all of our coaching staff is that it is certainly terrific to see a great kid--who has worked as hard as anybody we've had--be rewarded like this," Gaudet said. "Erik just works and works and works."
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